One of the consequences of accidentally releasing a developer's build of the game is the possibility of revealing removed content or inside jokes, as illustrated by a report on Kotaku about a discovery within the build of Dead Islandinadvertently released on Steam (thanks nin). Word is a hunt through the game's code reveals the Gender Wars skill that allows Purna to deal extra damage to male opponents was originally called "Feminist Whore." This is confirmed with Techland, who indicate that while there weren't necessarily dire consequences for releasing a debug build instead of the final build of the game, there may be for this incident, as they say: "The person responsible for this unfortunate situation will face professional consequences for violating the professional standards and beliefs Techland stands for." Deep Silver also disavows this, saying: "These unfortunate actions were of one individual at developer company Techland and do not in any way represent the views of publishing company Deep Silver." Here's more of the response from Blazej Krakowiak, Techland International Brand Manager:

The line in question was something a programmer considered a private joke. The skill naturally has a completely different in-game name and the script reference was also changed. What is left is a part of an obscure debug function. This is merely an explanation but by no means an excuse. In the end that code was made a part of the product and signed with our company name. We deeply regret that fact and we apologize to all our customers or anyone who might have been offended by that inappropriate expression.

Draugr wrote on Sep 8, 2011, 17:02:We can't assume everyone telling a racist/sexist/bigoted joke is doing it with tongue-in-cheek. Sometimes they are just racist, sexist, or bigoted. I'm not calling it one way or another, because I don't know any better, If I did KNOW the intention, and it wasnt rooted in bigotry, I'd be the first to defend this person to the death.

Putting aside my trolling the hypersensitive posters for a second, I will say in all seriousness that you bring up an interesting point. My answer to it is simply "What the hell does it matter?"

In our society, the pendulum has swung so far the other way from the rampant racism and sexism that was prevalent throughout earlier eras that nowadays saying something like whore, nigger, faggot, etc is viewed as a crime as bad as or worse than assault. In truth that's a bit of an exaggeration, but the reaction to perceived affronts to socially mandated decency is as strong or stronger than actual crimes!

Case in point - how many of you cringed, winced, or gasped because I had the nerve to actually type out what we as a society have ridiculously dubbed the 'n-word'? (Yes I did that on purpose.) Think about that for a second. A word. Made you wince or otherwise be taken aback. In my view if you give that kind of power to a single word than you are essentially creating a weapon that can be used against you and the very people whose honor and dignity you are attempting to protect (however much you tend to go overboard in said attempts). Be it whore, fag, "n-word" - these words have power because people react to them. People get upset by them. And in doing so, you get so overly sensitized to them that you then lump the people who get caught telling a harmless joke or pulling a simple prank in with the true haters and bigots. At that point, it doesn't matter what's behind the person's words, be it hate or humor - you label them evil and in doing so turn off people who don't let their emotions get the better of them every time someone says something a little blue, racy, or dirty.

Seeing the words whore, faggot, or any racial epithets don't offend me in the slightest, but seeing how otherwise rational adults seemingly lose all rationality and reason over simple words does.

EDIT: And now back to my trolling crusade!!!!!

This comment was edited on Sep 8, 2011, 17:30.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” - Mahatma Gandhi